This is the fifth part of the series “Legal or Illegal”. Please read that article first if you want understand the base of these arguments.

Pornography today is considered as immoral and accused of increase in sex crimes in the society. It is accused of causing moral degradation of the society. Despite of all this, with the advent of the Internet, and the ease of access to porn, the debate on pornography is slowing down, but still the kitten-smother-paranoids react really harshly on the idea of having any and all sorts of porn legal.

First knee-jerk reaction you will get when you suggest that in a free society, all sorts of porn should be legal. “OMG you are going to make the whole society into America-style immoral society, with your kids ruining their lives by watching porn”.  This reaction is as long as they don’t realize that I do mean Child pornography should be legal in a free society. Then its totally a different case which I will deal later.

The problem with pornography is, that only really really ultra-conservative societies support banning completely, in fact they prefer that their women don’t even show themselves to other men as it might result in impure thoughts. Yeah I am talking about the middle-eastern societies. Women never allow themselves to be a center of the immoral thoughts in the mind of another man. And yeah men blow themselves up by flying big planes to buildings.

Other than these ultra-conservative societies, most of the societies allow some level of porn to exist. There are special ratings for movies, the very famous Ⓐ for adult movies in India, and the famous Ⓡ for Raunchy movies in USA. In India movies depicting full sexual intercourse and full frontal male/female nudity is illegal, although movies with Ⓐ rating can show frontal top nudity. So the bootleg porn movies which show full sexual intercourse are called “Blue Films” in India.

Even in the pre-Internet days anyone could get hold of blue films in India pretty easily. And this rarely stops anyone from selling or buying them.

In Japan, porn movies can show intercourse but cannot show male/female genitals, so usually Japanese porn movies have those parts blurred or granulated. Other countries have similar restrictions.

Only in America the constitution provides protection to any kind of porn movies(save Child Pornography) through first Amendment or the right of Free Speech. Since the America’s free speech clause states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This empowers the whole pornographic industry of America. The problem is in other countries there is literally no consistent basis for making laws regarding porn. In America the govt cannot do anything about it no matter what people want, on the other hand in countries like India and Japan, the governments makes laws restricting what people can watch in the privacy of their homes and what they can’t.

The problem is what people fail to realize that pornography is an important need of an individual, those who enjoy pornography are not better or worse than those who find enjoying pornography dispeakable. What you do in the privacy of your home should not be a business of anyone. People claiming that having legal porn means people will become more immoral, they are unable to see the logical contradiction of their argument.

If you force a person to not watch a porn, is he really being moral? Doesn’t the fact that he wanted to watch porn, itself makes him immoral? If a man wants to rape a woman, and you stop him using force, has become a saint now?

Pornography is a victim-less crime, if people are allowed to do those things in the privacy of their rooms, then its depiction on film cannot be a crime.

Now coming to Child Pornography. Child pornography should not be a crime. Now lemme make it clear, I am not promoting child pornography, nor advocating legalization of child sex abuse. I am merely saying that child pornography in itself should not be a crime, but the person must be punished for using child actors for the acts depicted in the porn medium.

Basically child sex abuse must be a crime, but child pornography should not be a crime. In America simulated child pornography is legal, that is using old actors to dress up like kids, and using computer generated pornography. Although the possession of actual child pornography is a crime.

Its true that in a society of pure liberty, possession of child pornography will not be a crime, but anyone who shot it, must have used some kid, and harmed that kid, he is the person solely guilty for it. If no kid was harmed in making that porn movie, then Objectively speaking there was no crime.

Objective Perspective: People who abuse children sexually, are undoubtedly criminals, but those people who have urges for children(which is demonstrated by the fact that they sought child pornography), but are settling down for watching child porn on their comp(which could be virtual, or historical, that is, already produced) in the privacy of their room are objectively not committing any crime. Their potential for abusing a child cannot be a ground for their incarceration or punishment.

The mere action of watching film or printed material of any kind or gratifying themselves while watching is not a crime in itself, so it cannot be punished period.

Pre-empting arguments:

• You are sick man! - Well thanks, everybody is sick in some way or the other. Don’t tell me you never watched pornography on the Internet. Regarding child pornography, well guess what, child pornography is a multi-million dollar industry in the world. The more you try to criminalize it, the more incentive you are giving to child pornography producers. Most of the child abusers turn out to be quite affluent people. They can afford to watch child porn, wouldn’t you rather have pedophiles known out in open by their usage of child pornography so that you can keep a close eye on them.
• Chaos! Legalizing pornography will create chaos everywhere - I am sorry but this is a de facto argument given to whatever I suggest. It comes basically because of what psychologist describe as “Fear of the unknown”. If you think legalizing prostitution will create chaos in the society, well then think again because according to psychologists you are saying that because you are unable to envision such a scenario.

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written by renegade_division